RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Obama’s Amnesty Voter Registration Drive Begins Today

This week we will witness thousands of illegal aliens lining the sidewalks of embassies and consulates in order to obtain documentation that will allow them to remain in the country indefinitely, and eventually, sign up to vote for Democrats. This is all being done at the behest of our top law enforcement officers in contravention to our laws, yet there is nothing ‘we the people’ can do about it. Welcome to Obama’s America.

Back in 2009, Obama declared, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” It’s no surprise that Obama would disregard our laws, particularly those that govern the very process which turns immigrants into full-fledged Americans. Obama has no respect for the laws passed by Congress, nor does he value the meaning of American citizenship and the process in which it is obtained.

To that end, Obama announced in June that he would grant amnesty to 1.7 million illegals who qualify for the Dream Act – a law that failed in Congress. He also announced that he would terminate the 287(g) federal-state immigration enforcement program. Fox News reported today that Homeland [In]Security has begun the process of accepting applications for the amnesty. The applications can be downloaded from the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – the organization that is charged with upholding our legal immigration process. There are no safeguards in place to prevent fraud even to satisfy the administration’s low standards of eligibility. In fact, the application explicitly states that “you do not need to submit original documents unless the USCIS requests them.” Under Obama’s guidance, they sure will never request them.

Unfortunately, Obama has been able to implement this illegal administrative amnesty with great aplomb because Republican leaders have signaled that they have no interest in opposing him. For some reason, they think that a commitment to fixing the economy means that they are precluded from issuing a one-paragraph statement lambasting Obama’s illegal, dangerous, and immoral act.

There is something Congress can do, though. At present, there are several pieces of legislation that have been introduced in the House designed to combat the administrative amnesty:

H.R. 5957 Congressman David Schweikert (R-AZ) introduced H.R. 5957, which would block the Secretary of Homeland Security from deferring deportations or from limiting the enforcement of our immigration laws.

H.R. 6000- Congressman Todd Akin (R-MO) introduced H.R. 6000 in July, a bill that would block all access to Medicare, Social Security or food stamps for all those who were here illegally prior to any administrative amnesty. Most of these illegals are from poor families are low-skilled workers. Once they become permanent legal residents, they will be entitled to sundry welfare programs. Just the earned income tax credit alone would cost tens of billions annually. And remember, Obama’s other recent administrative end-run around Congress loosened the eligibility standards for welfare.

Even those in the Republican Party who are largely apathetic to the immigration issue should be concerned about this illegal chaos. Such consequential and complicated decisions must go through the legislative process. They must not be implemented by a rouge administration that is committed to signing up as many new Democrat voters as their own rules permit.